Coffin Hop 2014: Stephanie's Story, Part One

Previous

Flickering her eyes open, Stephanie moved beneath the sheets of her bed, seeking the warmth of her beloved. But all she found was cold fabric. Opening her eyes fully, she looked around the bedroom fully, looking for her darling paramour.

The shelves were still stocked and stacked with care, vials of rare ingredients and librams of arcane and forbidden knowledge (along with a few romance novels) sat against the walls of the small cottage that Stephanie called home. The middle of the room sat a table with her crystal ball, her familiar coiled into a ball next to it, purring softly. An opened book sat on the table, and the swirling mists of her crystal ball told her that someone had been using it recently.

“Cloud…” She growled, throwing the sheet off of her and sliding from the bed, her bare feet slapping on the hardwood floor. Walking over to a dresser she slid on a pair of jeans and pulled on a thin purple top before pulling on one of Cloud’s jackets. The cold material reminded her of his absence from her arms this morning, forcing her to think on what she would have to do with the wayward soul of her boyfriend.

A clatter from the kitchen, a small room off to the side, caught Stephanie’s attention which, on reflex, had her plunging her hand into her underwear drawer and pulling a switchblade out, flipping open the knife she’d so carefully painted with rattlesnake venom not three days prior. Flipping the blade in her smooth hand, Stephanie cautiously walked around to see who was in her kitchen.

What she saw was a shirtless Cloud, fixing a sort of breakfast of fruits and cheeses, chopping with a sharpened blade with practiced ease. Breathing a sigh of relief, she padded into the kitchen and slid her arms up and around his chest.

“Hmmm… morning lover,” Stephanie breathed, reveling in the cold body beneath her hands. He was sculpted like marble, with a smooth imperfection over where his heart should be. Otherwise he was a flawless masterpiece made from a gorgeous piece of man.

“Morning,” he greets, chopping up pineapple slices into thinner triangles. “I sensed you would be hungry this morning, so I prepped a tray of fruit and cheese for you.”

“Aww… how sweet, thank you!” Stephanie said, twisting to kiss him on the cheek.

“Anything for you,” he said somewhat automatically. “I’m yours, you know that.”

A slight pang of guilt stabbed at her chest as she thought of what he said and what he meant. She’d removed his heart nearly two years ago and sealed it away, after further ensnaring the boys mind with her magical wiles.

But no matter how much she plied him, no matter what trick she did, his heart still beat for another. At first she thought he missed his family, and knew that would fade slowly. Just like someone moving out of their home misses their family the first few weeks and gets over it, so too does the heart move on. But it’d been years, and it still longed for another.

I should ask that Lurker he was talking to the other day… my Dream Cloud doesn’t normally stoop to speaking to them. She though as she moved to sit at the table, followed by Cloud with his tray of varied cheeses and sliced fruits, along with two forks.

“I got up early and went into town to pick us up some magazines so that we have something to read other than spellbooks.” Cloud added as they sat down, waving at the stack of magazines. “I found some Cosmopolitans, some Men’s Health, even some Entertainment Weekly’s.”

“Just how long have you been up?” Stephanie asked, spearing a slice of strawberry with a piece of Swiss.

“Well I technically don’t sleep yet, so I’m sort of always up. I left around three in the morning to set this up for us.”

“You’ve been out since three in the morning? Have you been looking for that little coward at all?” Stephanie growled, referring to Sandra.

“What? No! I set this up for us, stopped by and got the cheeses from a local deli in town just as they opened.” Cloud replied, leaning back in his chair. “You can trust me babe, you know my heart is yours.”

Stephanie frowned as the last bit came out a bit sarcastically, but she took a breath and bit her tongue. Instead she adopted a smile, “well thank you Dream Cloud, I really appreciate this.”

“No problem,” Cloud replied, smiling. “So what are we going as this year? I know you’ve been keeping it a secret from me for a while now…”

“Well, since it is Halloween almost… remember how you explained that online game to me?”

“World of Warcraft?”

“Yeah, that. I looked into it and found a Banshee Queen and her loyal Demonic Servant. With a little magic we can make ourselves appear truly gruesome yet sexy at the same time.” Stephanie said, waggling her eyebrows as she chewed on a piece of pineapple.

“That sounds wicked! Do I still get a sword?” Cloud asked, thinking of his precious blade.

Stephanie waved it off. “Of course. Now what I think we shoul-”

The cottage suddenly rocked as if something slammed into the side of it, a thunderous sound of rage and anger billowing up from the earth as the two of them were thrown from their chairs to the floor. Looking at each other, both scrambled to get their supplies. Cloud grabbed his sword and a buckler he’d recovered while Stephanie brought out her whip and a pistol, an old .45 she’d looted off of a police officer nearly thirty years ago, back when the juices pumping through her system were brand new, keeping her young forever. She idly thought she’d need a new injection soon, as they made their way to the front door, Cloud kicking it open.
Next